Your Site Shouldn't Collect Dust
Your website launched six months ago. Since then, you've changed your hours, added a new service, hired someone, and run two promotions. Your website still says "Now Open for the Fall Season!" with a photo of pumpkins on the homepage.
This happens to almost every small business. The site launches, everyone celebrates, and then it slowly drifts out of date because nobody has the time (or budget) to keep it current.
The problem is that your visitors notice. A stale website signals neglect, and people read that as a sign about how you run your business.
What Goes Stale First
The most common offenders are seasonal references that outlive their season. A holiday greeting still on the homepage in March. A promotion that ended two months ago. Hours that changed but were never updated online.
Then there's the subtler stuff. The team page still shows someone who left in January. The testimonials section hasn't been touched since launch. The blog has one post from eight months ago. None of these are catastrophic on their own, but together they create an impression: this business isn't paying attention.
It goes beyond perception, too. Google factors freshness into its rankings. A site that hasn't been updated in six months sends a signal that the content may no longer be relevant. That can push you down in local search results, exactly where you can't afford to lose ground.
Why It Stays Stale
The most common reason is that the agency that built the site charges for every change. Need to update your hours? That's a support ticket and a line item. Want to swap out a photo? Same thing. Over time, the friction adds up and business owners just stop asking.
The second reason is that the site was built on a platform the owner can't easily edit. The agency controls the backend, and making even simple updates requires going through them. So changes pile up, and the site falls further behind reality.
What a Site Refresh Looks Like
Every Vistoso Creative monthly plan includes scheduled Site Refreshes. Essentials clients get one per year. Growth clients get two. Premium clients get four. Here's what that means in practice.
Spring example: Updated business hours for the new season. Fresh photos that reflect the current vibe of your space or products. A new testimonial pulled from a recent Google review. Updated copy if you've added or changed services. A check on all links, forms, and load times to make sure everything still works.
The process: I reach out at each scheduled interval with a short checklist. You tell me what's changed, send any new photos or info, and I handle the rest. If nothing major has changed, I'll still review the site for performance, broken links, and anything that looks dated.
No invoices per change. No support tickets. No waiting two weeks for someone to update a phone number. For a deeper look at how this works in practice, read The Seasonal Website Refresh Playbook.
The Launch and Vanish Problem
Most agencies operate on a project model. They build your site, deliver it, and move on to the next client. If you need something after launch, you're either buying hours at a premium or submitting requests that sit in a queue.
That model works for the agency. It doesn't work for you.
A website is a living thing. Your business changes, your customers change, the web changes. A site that launched perfectly six months ago can easily be outdated today. The only way to keep it working is to keep it maintained, and that should be built into the plan from the start.
That's what the Site Refresh does. It's not a premium add-on. It's part of every monthly plan because a site that collects dust doesn't serve anyone.